New Englanders True to Donuts, Sports

I spent over 25 years of my life in the Boston area, so I wasn't surprised to learn that a new ranking of New England's top brands shows a sports brand taking the top spot.

This region, after all, is home to professional sports teams the Boston Red Sox, the Boston Celtics, the Boston Bruins, and the New England Patriots -- not to mention collegiate basketball's renowned UConn Huskies. Needless to say, New England fans are among the most knowledgeable, rabid, and vocal fanatics known to the sports world.

Number 1 in New Englanders' hearts is ESPN. Headquartered in Connecticut and with over $16 billion in 2009 revenue, ESPN, with its various media spin-offs, is all sports, all the time, and that clearly plays well with the New England crowd. It doesn't hurt, of course, that ESPN televises numerous Red Sox-Yankees games.

Second on the list is Connecticut's General Electric. More than 130 years old, GE is a mega-brand that continues to innovate and be a global heavyweight in diverse markets.

Brand number three, Dunkin' Donuts, is a beloved New England institution that embodies the region's love for coffee and donuts. Dunkin' Donuts is a local company made good -- remarkably, it has grown from a regional donut shop into the largest coffee and baked goods chain in the world. That's right, larger than Starbucks, with over 8,800 locations in 31 countries.

Rounding out the top five are fast food chain Subway (based in Connecticut) and Vermont's famed ice cream maker Ben & Jerry's. New England is home to other renowned brands  --  Bose, Fidelity, Ocean Spray, and Staples are just a few of the big names on the list.

The ranking, "New England's Most Powerful Brands 2010," was published by Protobrand, a Boston-based branding firm. To make it into the list (click here to download a PDF), brands had to be headquartered in New England, have marketing direction come from New England, have some portion of revenue coming from consumer markets as opposed to business-to-business, and have a national footprint.

Brands were ranked by some 350 marketing professionals from throughout the country, but not within New England. The survey respondents were asked to rank brands on  the basis of seven criteria: whether or not the brand was gaining momentum; uniqueness; distinctiveness; quality; consumer loyalty; whether working with the brand enhances a marketing professional's credentials; and if the brand was admired.